{"id":616490,"date":"2024-04-11T15:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/"},"modified":"2024-04-11T15:00:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T12:00:30","slug":"the-state-of-open-source-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"#The state of open source in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a23d44846473\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a23d44846473\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Open_AI\" >Open AI<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Open_Source_Initiative\" >Open Source Initiative<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#OpenLLM_Europe\" >OpenLLM Europe<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#AI_tooling\" >AI tooling<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Sustainability\" >Sustainability<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Monitoring_environmental_impact\" >Monitoring environmental impact<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Governance_and_funding\" >Governance and funding<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Cost_of_cyber_resilience\" >Cost of cyber resilience<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-9\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#The_growing_importance_of_data\" >The growing importance of data<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-10\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-state-of-open-source-in-europe\/#Open_to_change\" >Open to change<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-main-content\">\n                            <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open source is at a crossroads. For the past few years, venture capital has directly or indirectly paid for many of the contributors and much of the infrastructure it needed to keep going.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was until the past 24 months or so, when funding started to slow down, leading to less internal development or funding resources going toward open source.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Companies suddenly had to justify themselves, have a real business model, cut costs, and fundamentally start to return something to investors. On the other hand, this reckoning has led to refocusing, new pure open-source forks of commercially-minded projects, and a new lease of energy to keep the pace of open source.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Earlier this year, I attended Europe\u2019s preeminent open-source event, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FOSDEM<\/span><\/a> (Free and Open source Software Developers European Meeting).<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Running for 24 years, the 2024 event attracted around 10,000 visitors and held 854 talks spread across Brussels\u2019 ULB. All for free and largely organised by a handful of organisers and sponsors.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper latest channel-cta hs-embed-tnw\">\n<div id=\"hs-embed-tnw\" class=\"channel-cta-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"channel-cta-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/events.tnw\/hardfork-2018\/uploads\/visuals\/tnw-newsletter.png\"\/><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/events.tnw\/hardfork-2018\/uploads\/visuals\/tnw-newsletter.png\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"channel-cta-input\">\n<p class=\"channel-cta-title\">The &lt;3 of EU tech<\/p>\n<p class=\"channel-cta-tagline\">The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol&#8217; founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It&#8217;s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In some ways, FOSDEM is a perfect microcosm of what open source should be, and what better place to analyse the current state of open source in Europe and the community at large.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FOSDEM is such a sprawling event. It covers not only the dozens of dev rooms on the university campus but also several side events around Europe (I also attended <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/stateofopencon.com\/schedule2024\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">State of Open Con<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, organised by Open UK in London). As such, it\u2019s hard to extract key <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">theme<\/a>s, but in this article, I attempt to give an overview of those I saw and heard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are artificial intelligence (AI), the environmental impact of tech, project sustainability, governance and regulations, and the data that underpins all of these.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Open_AI\"><\/span><b>Open AI<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s a certain irony that whilst the arguably most famous AI company has \u201copen\u201d in its name, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2023\/3\/15\/23640180\/openai-gpt-4-launch-closed-research-ilya-sutskever-interview\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it\u2019s decreasingly open in its research and development<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Behind the scenes of the AI hype, many people in open source are concerned about how a few companies control most of the data that power many AI tools. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many of us are used to the more traditional data sources behind applications, such as databases or API responses, where we can inspect their data easily. Models AI tools use, typically called Large Language Models or LLMs, represent their underlying data in a way that\u2019s much harder for a developer to see without additional tooling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While much of the tooling around AI is open source, it doesn\u2019t mean the resulting models are, or even if they are, that it\u2019s possible to \u201csee what\u2019s inside them.\u201d The open source community is working hard to change this, especially those who attend FOSDEM, where \u201copen\u201d is more of a way of life than an ideal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Niharika Singhal of the FSF for Europe mentioned in <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-2750-codes-bound-by-ethics-the-rising-tide-of-non-free-software-licenses-in-ai-ecosystems\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">her talk in the AI and Open Source dev room<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: \u201cThe popularisation of the (miss)use of the term \u2018open\u2019 in AI systems is particularly concerning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She continued to mention that the open-source community needs to take projects to task that label themselves as \u201copen\u201d if they don\u2019t adhere to certain principles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Open_Source_Initiative\"><\/span>Open Source Initiative<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stefano Maffulli of <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/opensource.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open Source Initiative<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(OSI) <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-2805-moving-a-step-closer-to-defining-open-source-ai\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">took this topic further<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to cover the initiative\u2019s collaborative definition that a truly open AI system needs to be available under legal terms that grant the freedoms to:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><b>Use<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the system for any purpose and without asking for permission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><b>Study<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> how the system works and inspect its components.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><b>Modify<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the system to change its recommendations, predictions or decisions to adapt to your needs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><b>Share<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the system with or without modifications for any purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Post-FOSDEM, the OSI continues to work on the definition. Stay up to date and get involved at <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/opensource.org\/deepdive\/drafts\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/opensource.org\/deepdive\/drafts<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"OpenLLM_Europe\"><\/span>OpenLLM Europe<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Always a bastion of data sovereignty, FOSDEM saw the launch of <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/OpenLLM-Europe\/European-OpenLLM-Projects?tab=readme-ov-file\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OpenLLM Europe<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a Europe-wide community initiative to create the first multimodal multilingual language model. This is to ensure that model content is more European-focused and includes a wider gamut of European languages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Announcing the initiative, Michel-Marie Maudet, COO of Linagora, showed a staggering slide <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-2629-from-openllm-france-to-openllm-europe-paving-the-way-to-sovereign-and-open-source-ai\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in his talk<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Currently, more than 90% of the training data in <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a> models is in English, and 68% are from organisations based in the US. To counter this, the project already has initiatives in several of the major European languages as well as smaller ones such as Maltese, Irish, and Slovak.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"AI_tooling\"><\/span><strong>AI tooling<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While it\u2019s always hard to pin down many open source projects to a particular region, on the more technical tooling side, most of the AI talks focussed on building, running, and training models \u201clocally.\u201d Open doesn\u2019t mean easy, and working with models still requires significant time and resources.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tying together the technical with the conceptual presented above, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-2591-building-open-source-language-models\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Julie Hunter showed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> how she built new models based on the French language and also re-tuned existing models, such as those from <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mistral.ai\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mistral AI<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (ironically based in France), to answer more often in French than it currently does.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hunter demonstrated one example asking for a recipe in French. It would start the response in French and halfway switch to English. The recipe was even originally a French dish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A long-term player in European open source, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcloud.com\/blog\/ai-in-nextcloud-what-why-and-how\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nextcloud showcased their new local AI tools<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that provide a user interface for finding and using models on a Nextcloud instance. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The features provide convenience wrappers and use a traffic light system to rate the models in the catalogue, bearing in mind many of the \u201copen\u201d aspects mentioned by Stefano Maffulli. I am unsure if my Raspberry Pi at home could cope with running any LLMs, but I look forward to trying.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, an issue for many AI tools is getting meaningful and current data in and out of models in a spontaneous and dynamic way, for example, fetching daily <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> or conversations in a messaging app. Tuana \u00c7elik from <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/haystack.deepset.ai\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Haystack<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> showcased an <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-2424-using-haystack-to-build-custom-functionality-for-llm-applications\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0open-source tool<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to build components that use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) in a more \u201ctraditional\u201d developer way to help you build AI data processing pipelines.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Sustainability\"><\/span><b>Sustainability<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I started my career in tech, compute resources were <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">expensive<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Servers, memory, and storage were so <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">expensive<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that you had to find as many ways as possible to optimise how you used them. Then, with the advent of large multi-service cloud hosts, the costs dropped, and instead, we resolved many technical scaling issues by using more \u201ccheap\u201d resources.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Except they weren\u2019t actually as cheap as we thought. First, many of the new wave of cloud companies weren\u2019t necessarily cheaper; they just had different pricing models. The recent budgetary cutbacks in tech are causing many to question decisions made when money was more freely available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, this abundance of infrastructure also involves another cost. The environmental impact. \u201cThe internet,\u201d according to <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theshiftproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Lean-ICT-Report_The-Shift-Project_2019.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the shift project<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is estimated to have an impact roughly equal to that of the airline industry. Personally, I think this number is underrated, as the definition is vague and doesn\u2019t include a lot of the hardware and software that is connected to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether motivated by cost-cutting, forthcoming regulation, or pure altruism, monitoring and reducing the environmental impact of applications is now a big topic in open source, especially in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Monitoring_environmental_impact\"><\/span>Monitoring environmental impact<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The continent is home to several foundations and initiatives, including the <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thegreenwebfoundation.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Green Web Foundation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, whose <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/thegreenwebfoundation\/co2.js\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">co2.js<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is used by many to monitor their application\u2019s impact. <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-3317-web-accessibility-and-environmental-sustainability-and-with-popular-cms\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mike Gifford gave an interesting talk<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on efforts using co2.js to reduce the carbon impact of the most popular content management systems (CMS).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among the waves of cool new technologies at FOSDEM, it\u2019s worth remembering that a handful of CMS, run the vast majority of the internet (WordPress alone runs about 60% of websites). As Mike said:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s easy to forget that real hardware is behind all the \u2018bits\u2019 we push around and use.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of the major browsers now have some form of carbon impact profiling built in, but head and shoulders above the rest is the <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/profiler.firefox.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Firefox profiler<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that goes into dizzying detail on the computing resources a web page is using.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-2716-firefox-power-profiling-a-powerful-visualization-of-web-sustainability\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of my favourite talks<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was from Florian Qu\u00e8ze, one of the key engineers behind the tool. Estimating carbon emissions of applications and processes is still in its nascent stages, and Florian detailed some of the engineering decisions taken to build calculations. For example, the most locked down platform (macOS on Apple Silicon) returns the best results, while the most open (Linux) returns the least, mostly due to security concerns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am not much of a Firefox user, but I have tried running the profiler on my website, and whilst the most intensive web processes aren\u2019t always a surprise, it\u2019s fascinating to measure and see in such detail. Seeing the potential impact of an image or JavaScript framework visualised drives home what adding something that seems so small can mean.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Governance_and_funding\"><\/span><b>Governance and funding<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FOSDEM has plenty of content on the governance, funding, and broader sustainability of open-source projects. But, the topic was more the domain of <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/stateofopencon.com\/schedule2024\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">State of Open Con<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (SOOCON), an event organised by OpenUK, Europe\u2019s only body for fostering relationships between open-source projects, government, and industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Making those connections directly on the subject of open AI, SOOCON held AI consultation sessions with <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/department-for-science-innovation-and-technology\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the UK\u2019s science and innovation department<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Home Office. OpenUK\u2019s Amanda Brok told me about the long queues outside each session and the fruitful discussions developers were bringing straight to the government.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think it\u2019s important that the authentic voice of the people who are actually doing the work is heard during the process. I don\u2019t think it has been elsewhere in the world, and I don\u2019t think it has been historically in the UK,\u201d Brok said.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Cost_of_cyber_resilience\"><\/span>Cost of cyber resilience<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europe is renowned for regulations, and the past year has resulted in several large policy frameworks that influence tech \u2014 <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu\/en\/policies\/cyber-resilience-act\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the Cyber Resilience Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (CRA), <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/legislative-train\/theme-a-europe-fit-for-the-digital-age\/file-new-product-liability-directive\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the Product Liability Directive<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/topics\/en\/article\/20230601STO93804\/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EU AI Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. With lots of information to digest and react to, both FOSDEM and SOOCON held deep-dive sessions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the past year, the CRA has been of the most concern to open-source communities, as it puts responsibility for harm caused by software into the hands of creators. For open-source software, this is complicated, as who is really responsible? The creator of the open-source software or its implementor? Many open-source projects have no legal entity that anyone can hold \u201cresponsible\u201d for problems or harm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After heated conversations between open-source communities and the EU last year, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/linuxfoundation.eu\/cyber-resilience-act\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EU lawmakers and regulators ended up listening and reacting<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to most of the communities\u2019 feedback, but there are still concerns that it adds too much overhead to a new role the act calls \u201copen-source stewards.\u201d At a time when funding is tight, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fosdem.org\/2024\/schedule\/event\/fosdem-2024-3395-cra-40-new-ways-the-cra-can-accidentally-harm-open-source\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tobie Langel asked the question<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on everyone\u2019s mind:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWho\u2019s going to bear the cost of this overhead?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Granted, there are plenty of open-source foundations, but they also have limited resources and bring their own overhead to small projects.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_growing_importance_of_data\"><\/span><b>The growing importance of data<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open source is <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.openlogic.com\/sites\/default\/files\/pdfs\/report-ol-state-of-oss-2024.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">used more and in more places than ever before<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. However, due to financial pressure in the wider ecosystem and the influx of a new form of \u201copen\u201d projects, AI tools, and services, the community needs to be more considered and cautious than ever. Amanda Brok put it well when we spoke, telling me that SOOCON and OpenUK intentionally changed their stated aims a few months ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c\u2018Open-source software and hardware\u2019 used to be enough to encompass the community and its aims and concerns. Now it\u2019s \u2018Open-source software, hardware, and data\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Open_data\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An Open data movement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, that aims to keep public data as freely accessible as possible, has existed for some time. <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/data.europa.eu\/en\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The EU alone has nearly 2 million data sets<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. However, this past year saw the open-source community have to care about the openness of data in completely new ways.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If a project or community wants to leverage new AI tools, it must now consider the data it uses and how it was trained. It needs to maintain regulatory data if it has any usage in the EU. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Depending on new regulations around the world, in the future, it might need to start profiling and reporting carbon impact. The wider commercial tech industry has known the value of data for some time, and now, whether it likes it or not, open source is also realising its importance and value.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Open_to_change\"><\/span><strong>Open to change<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite a challenging 12-18 months in open source, the European ecosystem is in a good position to rise to the occasion. Compared to the US, open source in Europe has always been more conservative about funding sources and seeking different ways to sustain itself. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s too early to call on how the community will tackle the current AI boom, but EU regulators engaging more and local efforts to ensure diversity, inclusivity, and equity are positive signs for Europe\u2019s open source community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether motivated by cost reduction, concern for the environment, or something in between, some of the key figures in the drive to make application software and hardware more sustainable call Europe home. Thus, the continent is in an excellent position to lead the change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are challenges ahead, and open source needs to adapt, but I am confident that the European community is as ready as ever to face them.<\/span>\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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